Noted nineteenth-century American writer Henry David Thoreau, opens his 1849 essay “Resistance to Civil Government,” one of the most famous political essays of all time, with the immortal lines:
“I heartily accept the motto,–“That government is best which governs least;” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,–“That government is best which governs not at all;” and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.”
